During its monthly board meeting, Interim Executive Director Veronique Hakim said the MTA will examine how transit workers respond to train problems and report results back to riders.

The announcement comes amid an onslaught of malfunctions and service changes that have straphangers at the boiling point, angry not just with delays but with recorded announcements that falsely attribute them to "train traffic ahead."

"We understand that everybody is frustrated with this,” she said. “They have a right to be.”

As a signal malfunction plagued service Tuesday morning on uptown B, D, F and M lines, one stuck commuter escaped from a stalled train and walked on the tracks to exit the next station.

Hakim attributed crippling delays to the archaic signal system, which dates back to the 1930s.

“You have heard us describe the old, aging subway system,” she said. “That is not going to be fixed overnight, but how we respond to events can certainly be improved."

The MTA has spent more than $2.1 billion replacing the antiquated signals during the current capital program, more than the $1.9 million it did between 2010 and 2014 and $1.3 billion from 2000 to 2009.

"Some of these recent incidents highlight the fact that we need to improve our communication both within our subway system and on our trains affected by delays," Hakim said. "But I want the riding public to know we are attacking this with an all-hands-on-deck attitude in a number of ways."

Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced legislation Tuesday that would let him appoint two more board members to the agency, giving him mathematical control. But the governor already dominates the agency because he appoints more members than any other official does and also chooses the MTA chairman and chief executive, a combined position vacated early this year by Thomas Prendergast.

"Gov. Cuomo's MTA board proposal obscures the very real fact that the governor already controls the MTA,” John Raskin of the Riders Alliance said in a statement.

Raskin was one of 25 speakers registered to make public comment at the meeting. He criticized Cuomo for a lack of leadership.

“Gov. Cuomo did not invent the policy of investing too little in mass transit.,” he said. “The state has been culpable for decades of putting too little money in, and in recent years, year over year, taking money out of the MTA’s budget.

“But Governor Cuomo has been in office for six years, and it’s his responsibility now to address the problem,” Raskin added. "The next step is a plan, and that is something that riders are still waiting for."

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